After her core test came the firing range, endurance swim, psych eval, and special talents—in her case, knives. Nigel had the right to switch the lineup at any given moment, but never during her years at MI6 had he bothered to do so. He purposely placed the psych eval after the swim to allow his agents’ bodies to rest and regroup for the next physical challenge.

One thing was certain: she had to pass these tests. In no way did she intend to become a washed-up field agent at twenty-seven and ride a desk for the rest of her career—no matter how fascinating she found electronic digging.

Her core test went far better than her run; the chin-ups, though difficult, passed within the acceptable range. When she entered the basement shooting gallery, a cavernous affair with concrete walls, two chairs were set up on either side of the weaponry table. A bald man with an unkempt beard sat in one of them.

The psychologist looked up from his binder, his eyes assessing.

Elise’s flesh rippled, and her hands fisted at her sides.

Nigel’s voice crackled through the PA system. “Change of plans, Agent Taylor. We’ll do the psych eval first.”

She glanced up at the bulletproof observation window with its bird’s-eye view of the gallery. No doubt Nigel and his cohorts had convened up there to observe her proceedings behind that smokey glass.

With perfect posture, she strode to the table and took a seat across from the doctor. What a peculiar hair combination he had. She tilted her head and eyed his beard. To her, his hair grouping looked like someone had screwed his head on upside down. Did he wear it that way to make up for the hair loss on the top of his head?

She found a few days of facial scruff wildly attractive, but this precise combo? Definitely not. She gave herself a mental shrug. To each his own.

“Make yourself comfortable, Agent Taylor,” the doctor said. “We’ll start with word associations. Is that all right with you?”

“By all means,” Elise agreed and motioned for him to proceed.

“Dog.”

“Bark.”

“Cat.”

“Claws.”

The doctor’s eyebrow twitched. “Heart.”

“Target.”

His eyebrows went up. Her mouth quirked at his faintly shocked expression. Surely, the man didn’t expect kittens and flowers from a field agent.

“Computer,” he asked.

“Hack.”

“Car.”

She hesitated as unbidden memories of a high-speed car chase through the streets of Oxford flashed through her mind. A lorry had borne down on her and her former MI6 partner. The crunch of metal on impact, shattering glass, and the car spinning out of control came back to her in fragmented pieces. The splintered images spiraled like colored pieces of a kaleidoscope. Adam slumped behind the wheel as a bin wagon plowed into the passenger door. A burst of light and blinding pain. Her partner’s limp body being pulled from the wreckage . . .